Heartfire Meditations And Life Practices Theology Religion Essay

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

If you meditate in your heart, you will then melt into supreme consciousness.

—Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

<H1>Gazing at the Inner Fire—Dristi and Dharana

<Fig 115 Find a meditative photo and illustrate an overlay of a Sri yantra with a blazing bindu in the heart. This image is for this whole Dristi Section>

Our eyes are naturally drawn to the center of a fire, where we experience an inward shift. The same is true when we gaze at the sun during twilight hours. One of the oldest formal instructions in the world’s meditative traditions is to steady your eyes and to feel the sacred presence. In this way we can behold the fire of consciousness. Once our gaze settles, we enter states of awe, reflection, and adoration. We relax and become centered in contemplation, creating a sacred space for the spontaneous flow of insight, for our own creative and spiritual unfolding. This is the power of dristi: the inner gaz or seeing with the inner eye for understanding. Even as infants, we gaze at the sun, the moon, the sky, at one another, at the world in motion, and we enter a quiet inner space.

The inner gaze emerges from the heart and can stream anywhere and everywhere within the body. The hridaya bindu meditation is a form of dristi that begins with re-envisioning the body as a yantra—or essential form—that originates from a central energetic point: a bindu or a seed vibration. The bindu represents the vibrating origins of a form which in the yogic body is connected to as the bindu of the heart center.

Strengthening the natural meditative gaze through ritual devotion becomes the "techinique" of gazing. It is important not to lose the naturalness or to introduce any tension by efforting. Simply gaze as we innately know how to do. When we add the spark of our feeling (bhava) , our gaze, effortlessly activates our Heart Fire energy like a spark turns to flame.

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<H1> Awakening the Heart Bhava through the Gaze.

The nature and essence of bhava are pure consciousness. Bhava ushers in prema or love just as the rays usher in the rising sun, and melts the heart – Swami Shivanada

As our gaze brings us into a deeper state of presence, we become aware of our own bhava, a rich inner state of heart feeling. From the root word, bhu or "to be," bhava is the ground of being of the heart, just as bhumi is Sanskrit for the earth. Bhava can also be translated as a verb, a method of contemplationthrough the heart.

Dristi offers direct access to this feeling state. As soon as our eyes become steady, a natural entrainment of the breath, heartbeat, and brain waves takes place. We become more aware of what we are experiencing beneath the surface. This state of entrainment facilitates a natural contemplative quality that is associated with meditation. [1] Contemplation, presence, insight, feeling, devotion, emotional stirrings, dissolution, and heart-based realization all arise out of bhava.

<H1>Meditations

Here are a few dristi meditations that move us into the bindu of the heart and the feeling state of bhava.

<H2>Gazing at the Outer Fire—Trataka

Fire gazing may be the oldest meditation, a steady resting of the eyes upon the brilliance of flame. Trataka is the yogic version of this practice in which we consciously gaze at a fire and internalize the gaze to realize the link between our inner power and the outer power of fire. Through trataka, the inner eye is awakened.

To begin, light a candle, an oil lamp, or little fire in the hearth, accompanied by a prayer or an intention. With relaxed focus, feel your gaze settling upon the fire.

Let yourself remain relaxed and comfortable, naturally attentive, with minimal blinking, ignoring any visual distractions.

As you steady your gaze, you’ll notice a meditative state arising from within.

<H2>Hridaya Dristi – Heart Gaze

Keeping your outer gaze upon the fire, begin to awaken the hridaya dristi (inner gaze upon the Heart Fire). You can kindle and cultivate a continual connection to your inner Heart Fire through repeated experience and practice of this inner heart gaze.

Begin by relaxing the backs of your eyes. Feel a quality of streaming your awareness in a downward cascade toward your heart center. There will be an immediate shift toward your "feeling mind." This is because when your brain waves are vibrating at high frequencies, stimulated by the usual plethora of thoughts traveling through the mind, your somatic experience is one of excess energy. This inner gaze instantaneously shifts your awareness through the heart field; your gaze ignites it and allows it to come to prominence in your inner state.

With your dristi, feel or visualize the power of your Heart Fire. This is not a time to analyze it, but to nourish the inner fire through the power of dharana, a meditative focus that kindles devotion.

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<H1>Solar Heart Fire Meditations

My body is flooded

With the flame of Love.

My soul lives in

A furnace of bliss.

Love’s fragrance

Fills my mouth,

And fans through all things

With each outbreath.

- Kabir

When people get around a fire they enter into a state of reflection and presence – a natural meditation. We have not forgotten. The great fire ball in the sky still captures our imagination – the sunrise and sunset still pull us in awe.

<H2>Sun Gazing—Surya Dristi

Gazing at the sun during sunrise or sunset is an ancestral practice that has the effect of synchronizing our biorhythms with the rhythms of the cosmos, the radiance in our heart with that of the sun. The soft light at these sacred junctures allows our eyes to take in the full spectrum of light frequencies that the pineal gland requires for proper functioning.

The sun is the fire altar of our planetary life. As you gaze at it as it rises or sets, feel the rays reaching you from 93 million miles away and recognize that this is the source that generates and regenerates all life. Gazing at the sun is a meditation in itself. As your eyes drink in the beauty of the moment, all other thought waves naturally rest. This is the state of namaskar, or bowing, to the extraordinary source of fire that our lives literally revolve around.

<H2>Solar Bhavana

Feel your own radiance, life-giving energy, and generosity, and all of the healing emotions that arise through that embodiment of the sun: joy, enthusiasm, connectedness, confidence, creative potency, and sustaining power.

<H2> Cosmic Breath – Circulating the Inner Sun

<Figure 116 Meditating picture of me at Sunrise with graph of the solar circuit filling; fills most of page>

As you saw earlier in the book, the cycle of the breath is envisioned as the union of the sun and the moon, soma and prana, within the fire of the heart connected to the core Tantric practice of ucahara.. Each breath can also be visualized as the full cycle of either the sun or moon. The inner nyasa, or circulation of awareness, comes and goes on the in-breath and out-breath.

As you’re gazing upon the sun, you can draw solar prana into your heart with the breath. As you inhale, feel that radiance drawing into your body through the corresponding sandhyas or sacred junctures:

Inhale the solar light from the crown of the head to your third eye.

From the third eye center to the palate of the mouth.

From the palate of the mouth to your throat center.

From your throat center through to your heart center.

Bow your chin toward your heart and pause in kumbhaka (retaining the inhale retention without straining) and feel the space outside of time. Offer prayers and mantras within that space as offerings to the inner Heart Fire.

You have the option circulate the mantra Om or the solar mantra Om Hum Suraye Namaha. As you exhale, feel the solar breath return from the heart center back to the crown. Continue to breathe the light of the sun through the cycle of your breath, adding a mantra if you wish. You can enjoy this for several rounds, then rest in meditation.

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<H1>Inner Nectar Meditations

<Figure 117 Meditating picture of me at dusk with new Moon crescent with graph of the lunar circuit filling; fills most of page with graph corresponding to cosmic lunar breath>

Nectar in the moon,

Honey in the louts;

Tell me how they can be united.

Having made the hive,

the bee stores honey in it. - Song of Bhava

<H2>Lunar Gazing - Soma Dristi

Side bar quote: Behold how the moon-beams of that Hidden One shine in you. - Kabir

Gazing at the moon is a sacred practice that harmonizes your body and heart with meditative energy. It also offers the opportunity to see the gradual changes in your day-to-day energy reflected in the moon’s journey from new to full and back again.

You can cultivate this practice through all the seasons, sleeping outdoors in the summer (taking a moon bath) or bundling up and enjoying a harvest or winter moon for a few minutes, or longer, by the fire. You can offer the mantras of the Goddess (listed in Chandra Namaskar on page 000). that are associated with each phase of the moon or simply soak up the healing radiance of the gentle rays, as the plant world does.

<H2>Lunar Bhavana

Cultivating lunar bhavana awakens within the heart love for the subtle mystery of our being. The essential quality of the lunar bhavana is a shift toward receptivity, allowing the quiet power of relaxation, fluidity, and grace to circulate through the bloodstream. This is the yogic metaphor of the "nectar of the moon." You can nurture the lunar bhavana by contacting and amplifying any healing quality.

Whether you are gazing at the actual moon or visualizing the moon, draw the inhale from that reflective light down through the crown of the head through the backs of the eyes, as if drinking a supreme elixir, amrita, a mystical experience of the sublime nectar of the self.

<H2>Cosmic Breath – Circulating the Nectar of the Moon

The inhale is the cooling part of the breath cycle associated with imbibing the lunar nectar, the regenerative energy of the moon. The journey of the inhale begins with the new moon entering at the crown of the head, then waxing to full moon in the heart with the greatest concentration of lunar energy at the top of the inhale (kumbhaka). Then as you exhale, the journey reverses from full moon to new and from the heart to the crown of the head. This waning energy gives us the opportunity to let go with every exhale. Open your heart as you embody this journey by cultivating your hridaya dristi, or heart gaze.

With a long spine, feel your inhale (drawing down the moon) by visualizing a stream of lunar nectar flowing from the lotus at the crown of the head. As you gaze at the moon, draw your inhale from the crown to the heart as the expression of increasing light. This is a time to nourish whatever has been coming into being inside you.

Inhale from the crown of the head, slowly, with ujjayi breathing need a description of ujjayi, down into the heart center.

From the crown of the head (new moon) to your third eye center (quarter moon).

From the third eye center to the palate of the mouth (half moon).

From the palate of the mouth to your throat center (three-quarter moon)

From the throat center through to your heart center (full moon)

You can pause now in kumbhaka and circulate a mantra where the Sun, moon, and fire of the heart align with the crown of the head.

As you exhale, slowly release the breath, allowing it to pass through the throat, palate, third eye center, and crown of the head as if exhaling the waning moon.

Circulate one, two, three, or 108 rounds. Complete the process by resting in natural meditation.

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<H1>Heart Mantra —Sound of the Sacred

<Fig 118 find cymatics image of the yantra created through sound>

The universal practice of mantra evolved from the spontaneous chanting and singing that began around the fire. These expressions became refined as the mantras of firekeeping, or homa, in the Vedic tradition. The vibrations of mantra are seen as the actual subtle-body form of the divine.

We can now see these subtle-body vibrations, using an instrument called a cymascope, as the geometric patterns formed by sound vibration. Tuning ourselves to sacred vibration by chanting mantras has profound effects, unifying our inner rhythms of heart-brain flow.

The universal mantra sound of Om is not only found in yoga. It appears throughout spiritual cultures in differing yet recognizable forms: Awen in Celtic culture, Amen in Christian culture, Shalom in Jewish culture, Allah in Sufi.

Many people relate to the One in formless ways, such as the mantra of the breath, or as light invoking light. Connecting mantra to form is a natural process of feeling a connection through differing rays of the One. Always honor your personal spiritual beliefs here; the mystic heart feels an affinity for all the world’s spiritual traditions.

Sva Diksha mantras are universal mantras that can be chanted from one’s heart feeling. Diksha mantras are infused with the power of the Guru or teacher who is empowering the vibration of the mantra with the Shakti or energy of their realization. Although many of these mantras are such as the Sri Vidya mantra sodaskshi or 16-syllable mantra are available on the internet, these diksha mantras are part of an internal process that requires years of guided practice and many purascharana or 1000 malas (prayer beads) of mantras as part of the gradual awakening. Please see the appendix for a chart of Sva Diksha universal mantras that can be circulated as offerings to the heart fire.

<H2>Ishta Devata—The Heart’s Personal Connection to the Source

<fig 119 image of an interior meditation with either a graft of the inner heart temple or a little altar picture>

Your ishta devata is your personal connection (ishta) to a shining source (deva), the intimate experience of connection to life, the source we call upon when we are at our greatest need or enraptured in our highest joy. This is the intimate space of our heart’s devotion, the heart of our prayer.

Some people sense their ishta devata in the anthropomorphic form of a god or goddess or saguna as in sa (with) guna (form). Others have the nonanthropomorphic experience of the source as light, the fire of consciousness, or flame of love which is refered to as ni (without) guna (form). The yogic traditions emerged in India within the soil of devotion as the mantras (nama or sound signature within a name or seed sound) and form (rupa) of the One are considered to be as innumerable as rays of the sun or pathways up the mountain. The primary pathways are often described as three: the Shakta path for those who connect to the divine through the Great Mother Devi. Those who follow the way of love through Vishnu are on the Vishnav path.. Those who invoke the supreme reality as Siva are on Shaivite path.. For still others, the divine One is the union of the divine masculine and feminine.

Mantra and the healing power of sacred sound offer pathways for experiencing the divine current. Those represented here are but a few of the primary ishata devatas within yoga and other world traditions. Mantra japa, or the circulation of sacred sound, is a universal expression that can be traced back to our lifted voices around the fire.

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H1> The Highest Inner Pilrimage– Heart, Breath and Mantra Meditations

<Fig. 120 find a background image like ripples of waves to add>

Student, tell me, what is God? The breath inside the breath.

- Kabir

Breath comes in, breath comes out, sinuous in itself. Perfectly tuned to the breath, Kundalini the great Goddess rises up. Breath is the mantra, repeated twenty-one thousand times, day and night. She is the highest place of pilgrimage – Vijana Bhairva Tantra.

<H1 Hamsa - Natural Breath Mantra

Air is exhaled with the sound SA and inhaled with the sound HAM. The reciting of the mantra HAMSA is continous. – Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

All beings are being breathed by this natural mantra 21,600 times a day – the opportunity with each inhale and exhale to realize the inner meaning that is carried on the sound of the breath. As you inhale, you can hear the spontaneous mantra, "ham" which is Sanskrit means—"I am". As you exhale hear the mantra—"sa" in a calm flow which embodies the unifying meaning of the mantra connected to the miraculous breath breathing us all - "all that is." Circulating a mantra upon the breath is the most natural of mantras, a rhythm that ceaselessly courses through our being.

As you inhale and exhale, listen intently to the ocean sound of your breath. You can experience this naturally as it comes, or through the technique of ujjayi breathing. As you circulate the cosmic breath, you can circulate the sacred sound of mantra along the pathways of the body.

<H2 Ocean Rhythm of the Breath – Ujayi Breathing

Ujayi or victorious breath is the drawing of the breath along the back of the throat in a receptive flow without tension that sounds like the echo of the sea heard in a shell. The Ujayi breath is a continous streaming tide that can links your heart and breath rhythm through the slowing down into the sound of deep time – the eternal waves that have been in a pulse for billions of years. Throughout the day, during pranayama or movement meditations, keep opening to the flow of breath as the flow of consciousness - the mystery of the breath that becomes the basis for all of the other breath-mantras that follow.

<H2>Brahmari Breath – Making Honey in the Heart Primal or Universal Sound

Brahmari breath is a simple and yet profound breath mantra that connects one to the humming sound of bees that can be visualized as making honey in the heart with the hummmm of creation. It is simple as inhaling and then sounding the hummmm of a bee with a dronge or mmmm plus ngggg sound. This is the ending sound of Om - the sound of a hive in natural mantra. In the tantras, our consciousness is likened to a little bee by the name of uli: uli the little "soul bee" [2] . The little bee of consciousness hums to create the nectar in the heart.

<H1>Heart Mantra Meditations

<H2 Dum Dum – Mother of Sound

Bring your hands to feel your pulse at your carotid artery (just below your jawbone). Feel the sonic sensation of "hearing your pulse" – a unique capacity we have with our heart to hear what we feel. Internally or aloud chant "dum dum" with each pulse. "Dum" is the bija mantra connected to the Great Mother, the sound that our hearts’ syncopated to as we were sonically permeated with our mother’s heart rhythm. Dum can be seen as our first "sva diksha" or naturally intiated mantra that connects us to the extraordinary womb retreat where our first yoga movements which assisted in growing our body also unfolded. Go deeply into the dum mantra. Feel your heart connection to the mother of sound – Matrika Shakti – from which all mantras emerge. You can also combine om with the mother mantra of "om Dum Durgaye Namaha" .

Feel the deep resonance within and the shimmering that begins to increase in your body with the rounds of mantra.

<H2>Sounding of Om

O Bhairavî, sing OM, the mantra of the love union of Shiva and Shakti, slowly and consciously. Enter the sound and when it fades away, slip into freedom of being. – Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

Offer the pranava om as an invocation, or as a contionous part of your meditation or with the ucchara or raising of the mantra practice below. Offering om in the full-cycle of a-u-m is the essence of vinyasa as the sound of creation (a) emerges from the heart, is sustained at the peak (u) in the palette of the mouth and dissolves in the humm with a drone sound of nggg at the lips and skull center. Feel how sounding om naturally increases the flow of your exhale – a way of purifying excess thinking and bringing in more relaxation and resting in the heart.

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<H2> Body Mantra

<Fig. 121 a pranayama in nature meditative amazing>

Circulate the natural mantra of the breath for several rounds until you feel the calling for a more specific mantra that you can circulate with your breath along your body and as an offering to your heartfire. You can offer universal mantras such as Om Namah Shivaya or mantras of your own spiritual tradition – "shalom" "amen".

Or as you inhale, you can repeat several rounds of a universal mantra, such as namah shivaya, drawing the mantra as one long flow "naaaammmmah shivaaayyyaaa" or as a continual rhythmic flow with your breath. Visualize the mantra as being offered to your heartfire inwardly chanting a few more rounds of "namah shivaya, namah shivaya". Then exhale and continue chanting the mantra along with the flow of the exhale or just as the breath release itself. Feel the mantra resonating within you.

<H2 Mantra Japa>

Let your body be the lower firestick;

Let the mantram be the upper. Rub them

Against each other in meditation

And realize the Source.

—Upanishads

The daily circulation mantra is so beautifully cultivated in a mala of 108. Each mantra is turned with a bead of the mala held at one’s heart or in one’s lap turned by the union of the ring and thumb where one’s mala is balanced while turning. One round is from the beginning of the "guru bead" ( held by a large bead or tassle)t o the the last bead before the mala ends.

You can offer mantra to your heart as in the ucchara practice below while turning your mala, or by counting with your fingers or by a "body mala" practice that I have developed using where you can circulate 3 rounds of mantra in each of the six chakras from the muladhara (root chakra), creative center (swadhisthana), navel center (manipura), heart center (anahata), throat center (vissudhara) and vision center (ajna) making 18 rounds times 6 equals 108. This transformative cycle creates a ritual space in which to be transformed by the sacred current of sound. You can offer sva diksha (self-intiated mantras), universal mantras or the side sounds that you have been whispered by your teacher. Feel the accompanying transformation in your energetic body which is viewd as its source as mantra.

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<H2>Nadi Shodhana with mantra

<Fig. 122 Picture of nadi shodhana

Nadi shodhana is an essential practice for balancing sun and moon in the body, the sympathetic and parasympathetic parts of the nervous system that regulate the balance of the hemispheres of the brain: active and receptive. Nadi shodhana is the core pranayama householders can practice to reflect upon the state of their nervous system.

Be aware, as you begin this practice, of any grasping, pushing, or expectation, or rushing to complete it: these are all signs of excess solar energy in your system. This pranayama always begins with the left nostril, or lunar channels, so as to begin in a relaxed state. There are several different approaches form different schools of yoga, as well as practices that involve advanced ratios of left to right breathing. My approach with nadi shodana, as with all pranayamas, is to breathe with devotion for a long time before adding any breath retention count. Mantra can be your rhythm.

As you inhale through your left nostril, close your right nostril and slowly drink in your breath listening to the ocean sound or offering mantra as you inhale. Pause at the top with chin slightly bowed to the heart (jaladhara bandha) and rest in the silence or offer mantra to your heart. Close the left nostril and slowly exhale thorugh the right nostril with the sound of the breath or mantra. Pause again in the stillness of complet emptiness, purifying your nervous system of all grasping. Before any strain, slowly inhale through the right nostril with or without mantra. Pause at the top in silence or in mantra as if embraced by the breath. Exhale close your right nostril and slowly release your breath as if setting down a sleeping baby with silence or mantra. Circulate left – right, right to left for a minimum of three cycles or more. Enjoy the balance of the solar and lunar current.

<H2 Kapplabhati and Bhastrika - Solar pranayamas with solar bija Hram

These solar pranayamas are heating and purifying, cleansing out the old air and thoughts. They should be respected and never practiced with strain, during a lunar state such as a women’s moon cycle or when having a heating condition such as ulcers or hypertension.

Enjoy a short inhale followed by the pumping of your breath by your belly as if stoking a fire. This is known as kapplabhati or "skull (kapala) bhati (shining) breath and can be circulated for one to five minutes for several cycles without strain. You can combine with solar mudras or the solar bija mantra "hram" for activating prana and mantra. Bhakstrika or "bellow’s breath" is a slower rhythm and includes and even drawing in and out as the exhale is pumped out with the belly and then the lungs filled with the inhale. The rhythm is slow and percussive, purifying but calming. Offer for one-five minutes with pure breath or solar mantra. Enjoy the clear channel of the breath.

<H2 Sitali Pranayama with Shanti Mantra

This cooling pranayama is experienced through the curling of one’s tonugue to form a "straw" from which to inhale the cooling lunar breath and exhaling through the mouth. As you inhale meditate upon the moon and the quality of peace as offered in the mantra shanti, shanti, shanti whispered internally upon the breath to create a more calming bhavana when one is experiencing excess fire in one’s practice or life.

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<H2>Ucchara

with Inner Sandhyas— Cosmic Breath Meditation

<Figure 123 Picture of me with chart of solar-lunar breath>

This is a wonderful mudra vinaysa for harmonizing the solar and lunar currents inside the heart based in the earliest Tantra traditions. The first phase of this meditation which in essence means "rising (u as in udana) movement (chara) is taught within our teacher training community by Tantric scholar Chris Tompkins.

Relax into a state of presence and feel your inner heart gaze.

Begin the ucchara by lifting your hands together over your crown in jaya mudra.

As you inhale, receive the lunar breath by tracing the pathway from the crown to the heart (see lunar breath) slowly drawing your hands through prana mudra in a downward circle that meets with your hands connected in chin mudra (index and thumb touching and connected with fingers overlapping at your navel.

<fig 124 small picture of chin mudra.>

Bow your head and pause in your own natural kumbhaka, or breath retention, between three and fifteen beats of the heart

While in kumbhaka, make a fire offering of a seed mantra such as Om or Hum or Hrim (Tantric seed syllables with the heart) with natural devotion and ease. Connect to the central channel of your spine, visualizing the agni (fire) from your navel generating heat to forge the alchemical union of the solar and lunar breath within your heartfire, now joined in the sacred pause between in-breath and out-breath.

Feel your connection to the universal pulse, the feeling within your heart, your heart guru. Visualize the Heart Fire. Merge with the deep vibration you can feel within the heart’s pulse.

As you exhale, feel the purifying solar breath carrying a seed sound mantra such as "aaa (in the throat) eeee (in the palate) mmm (in the third eye) and nggg (in the crown)" in the original meaning of ucchara as "raising the mantra" from the heart to the crown (see solar pathway).

While you are chanting draw your hands upward from your heart along the same path and then sweep your arms open into prana mudra. Keep your hands even with your eyes and ears and feel the fullness of the peak expression of sound. Now inhale and bring the arms down along your sides and bring your hands together at the navel to begin the cycle again for at least three rounds.

You can enjoy this meditation with mantra and mudra for a minimum of three breaths or cycle it for nine or 108 breaths in mantra japa.

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<H1>Mudra Dhynam—Mudra Meditations

If you meditate within your heart, the spark that dissolves discursive thought will ignite as you melt into supreme consciousness. – Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

The whole-body mudras and the mudra vinyasas that we explored earlier now crystallize into hasta mudras, which can facilitate deep connectedness to your heart consciousness. They contain energetic forms that have an immediate effect upon your nervous system, and it is easy to begin to feel this simply by bringing your hands together at your heart.

<H2>Hridaya Mudras – Heart Generating Gestures

<H2 Hasta Mudra

<fig 125 small drawing of hasta mudra>

Bring your hands in front of you, palms facing up. Feel the very center of your palms, referred to as tala hridya, as a place of great receptivity.

Feel your hands like two open vessels, emptying the mind of static. As you rest in this mudra, you will begin to feel yourself shift into listening to your heart center.

<H2>Anjali Mudra – Heart Offering Mudra

<fig 126 small drawing of Anjali mudra>

Place your hands before you, palms up, as in hasta mudra above. Feel the solar current in your right hand and the lunar current in your left.

Now experience the central energy channel that runs along your spine (sushumna) and your heart representing the place of union between the two energies expressed through your hands.

<H2>Abhaya Mudra – Fearless Blessing Mudra

<fig.127 small drawing of Abhya mudra>

Abhaya has two simultaneous meanings: "have no fear," and "blessing mudra." This is often the mudra that gurus and elders offer. With your left hand resting on your heart, allow your right hand to face outward, at heart level, in abhaya mudra. Feel transformed by this process of resting in the place of no fear and the blessing that can stream from the heart.

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<H2 Svastika Mudra – Auspicious Mudra for the Heart

<fig. 128 small drawing of svastika mudra>

The simple mudra of crossing one’s hand over one’s chest has the same effect as Anjali mudra but often with the quality of reverence and intimacy as the arms have the quality of embracing ones self (sva) with the quality of auspicious, the feeling of life in its regenerative blessing. Rest here as part of your meditation or anytime within the day that you need to come home within your Self.

<H2 Abhaya Hridaya Mudra – Courageous Heart Mudra

<fig 129 small drawing of Abhaya Hridaya Mudra>

Cross your hands in front of your chest with the back of your hands touching, right hand closest to your heart. Interlink your little, middle, and index finger and then join the tips of your ring finger and thumb with both hands to form two circular rings. With your hands in front of your heart, release any fear, or doubt by feeling the awakened presence emanating from your heart.

<H2 Hridaya Mudra – Heart Consciousness Mudra

<fig. 130 small drawing of hridaya mudra>

With each hand create the same mudra: coil your index finger to the base of your right thumb while connecting your thumb to the tips of your middle and ringer finger. Now extend your little finger and feel the calming, heart generating bhava generated as you hands rest upon your thighs.

H2> Hridaya Padma mudra – Heart Lotus Mudra

<fig.131 small drawing of hridaya padma mudra>

Bring your hands to your heart in the shape of a lotus bud. Experience the generation of bhava—regenerative emotions such as compassion, gratitude—like fragrance rising from a lotus bud. With each inhale that is offered to your Heart Fire, silently repeat the quality that is arising: shanti (peace), prema (love), santosha (contentment). As you rest in these healing qualities, offer up any dissonant thought waves, subconsciously held tensions, or contracted emotions into the fire of your heart. Make a final prayer or dedication and let your hands gently overhead moving down your body in a cascade of renewal.

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<H2> Shiva-Lingam Mudra

<fig.132small drawing of shiva lingam mudra>

Tat Pranamami Sada Shiva Lingam - "I bow to the primordial union of Shiva Lingam"

– Shiva Manasa Puja

Shiva-lingam mudra is the embodiment of the union of masculine and feminine at the heart of creation. It balances the ida and pingala nadis, the active and receptive energy channels running along your spine. As you inhale, draw your left hand just below your navel and place it at svadhishthana chakra, related to the yoni, the moon in the female body or the seed center in the male body.

With your right hand, bring your fingertips together in a fist with your thumb extending upward. This hand represents the lingam, or male principle of ascending energy. Place your right hand over your open left palm at your navel center. Breathe here, maintaining your inner heart dristi and slow, rhythmic breath, while experiencing your whole body entering the state of union. You can visualize your entire spine as the lingam and the base of your body as the yoni, or you can visualize the shiva lingam inside the inner sanctum of your heart.

Feel any tension, feelings of separation, or inner conflict between polarities within you—such as intellect versus feeling—dissolve. Allow your experience of shiva-linga mudra to be fresh and new every time.

<H2 Surya Mudra – Solar Radiance Mudra

<fig. 133 small drawing of surya mudra>

With one hand or two, in seated meditation or at any time, bring the nail of the ring finger to be covered by your thumb while extending the remaining fingers like rays of the sun. Place your hands on your thighs or at the level of your heart. Relax and feel the subtle difference of the activation of pingala nadi or the outward moving solar current to generate energy, confidance and presence.

<H2> Surya Prana Mudra

<fig.134 small picture of Surya Prana mudra>

"In a comfortable position, hands open at shoulder level, an area of radiant spatiality gradually pervades the armpits, ravishes the heart and brings about profound peace" – Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

To practice the radiant surya prana mudra, extend your arms from the heart to the level of the eyes and ears with your palms facing inward as if to form a chalice for receiving energy at the same time radiating energy from your heart just as the sun simultaneously draws energy in to then create omnidirectional rays in all directions. Feel the empowering qualities that the solar current activates within your heart. This mudra is a healing tonic for any weak fire or contracted emotional state.

<H2> Soma Mudra – Lunar Nectar Mudra

<fig.135 small drawing of soma mudra>

When your clouds move away,

the Inner Moon will appear - Baul song

Soma mudra is practiced by drawing your open palm over the head or upon your crown while the other rests upon the heart. The hand at the crown of the head activates the inner entrainment of the brainwaves and heart rhythm, changing hormonal activity towards regeneration connected with the flowing of lunar nectar that streams down in the yogic vision.. This is the healing stream of soma that stimulates the healing hormonal flow of serotonin and oxytocin and a healthy cerebrospinal pulse. In this mudra, draw the lunar nectar down on the inhale and receive it with your left hand at your heart center.. This mudra is a good tonic for any depleted states or excess fire.

<Double-page spread ends – 14 spreads>

<H1 Heart Mandala Meditation

Connect your hands to your heart and your inner gaze to your heartfire, feeling the shimmer and heat within. Allow yourself to first receive. Imagine before you a being who radiates love and acceptance toward you. a grandparent, your beloved, a teacher, or any great being whose eyes radiate and penetrate your being with the healing stream of love beyond condition. Let the power of their wish that you have unconditional love and unhappiness overcome even the slightest hesitance or disturbing emotion such as being unworthy to receive such love. – Bathe in that love as it pours through their eyes, that totally accepts you and knows your heart of hearts, not as a dualistic vision but one that actually dissolves opposites into an ocean of love.

Feel that love energy kindles within and radiates to all of your cells. Even if your heartfire feels to be a tiny flame, let that flame be nourished in this stream of love as an offering that fuels your lovefire.

Now invoke from your own heart – connections – nadi lines that radiate out to

your immediate home and household, your beloved, your children, pets or animal friends. Invoke your parents, wherever they may be. Your brothers and sisters, extended family. You can expand the definition of children to include any beings who activate a nuturing force within you. Call upon them, one by one and radiate love and good will, visualizing or feeling their presence, silently or by offering your own prayer or, "May (invoke their name) be blessed" or "may _____ have love and goodwill and experience the blessings of innate happiness".

Continue to create your heart mandala.

Next connect a teacher from the past who touched your heart perhaps all the way back to when you were young. Surround with the light and love of gratitude for their love and guidance.

In truth, all of the beings you have reached out to are your teachers.

Now radiate the Heart Fire to your close friends, extended community, students, whomever comes into your heartfield that you can radiate good will..

Now include your colleagues and collaborators or anyone that you have a heartbond of respect.

Now include "precious jewels": anyone you have conflict with. Without these precious jewels, we may not practice so intensely to keep our hearfire alive. Send clear energy outward and work with that nadi line to transmute any regressive qualities such as bitterness or ill-will that are not useful in a healing process.

Now extend out with your heart to any places in nature, intimate places, a special tree or place by the river, pilgrimage sites, places that are in crisis, war-torn, where there is an suffering – any place that have moves your heart and radiate good will.

In the final phase, feel the power of your heart mandala connecting in all directions to your heart field. You can bring your hands to your heart or slowly radiate your arms from your heart to viscerally embody and feel the fullness of your heart field. Stay in this state with presence or prayer or the Lokah Smastaha Chant for as long as you like (continually connecting to the vibration of the heart mantra and is universality wish for all beings to be awakened and experience intrinsic happiness) and slowly bring your hands back to your heart when you are complete. Offer the mantra of peace from your own spiritual tradition or Om Shanti, Shanti , Shanti. Peace, Peace, Peace.

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<H1 Tending the Heart Fire Micro-Meditations - Living Yoga Sadhana

54 Life-Practices for Tending the Heart Fire

<Fig. 137* Tending the fire pictures – use the folder to see what works on the page with the texts>

One of the most important integrations of practices is whether it is actuall effective in our daily life. Tending the Heart Fire is not a cliché or a romanticism but a tangible, practical, instinctural way of transforming the conditioned patters that limit the flow of love in our life. We may only have images of sants householder or grhastya life needs.

A householder yoga embraces yoga of living and the integral way our view of ourselves and the world effects our embodiment and the way we live which then effects the energy exchange with all of life. Firekeeping in daily life dances with our shadow – what is neglected, unconscious, disconnected and disowned – a recovery that is not just personal but cultural as each person’s evolution is connected with cultural shifts and breakthroughs. Embodying and living from the energetic heart is radical and yet completely natural offering to a fragmented world rediscovering new applications for ancient wisdom and rhythms.

<H2: Micro-Meditation – Living Yoga in the Flow of Life

Within the lifestyle of householder Tantrica from 8tth century to the present - the flow of meditation was cultivated through dharanas, living contemplations such as 112 meditations with the vijnana bhairava tantra - that transform everyday movements into fire-keeping acts of realization*end note I am grateful to Daniel Odier for his illumination and embodiment of the vijnana bhairava and for highlighting the micro-practice aspect of the Tantric path as well as Paul Muller-Ortega, Chris Tompkins and Lorin Roche for making the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra accessible though translations and wisdom teachings.

With micro-practices, whatever you "tend" with your awareness is what flourishes with your connection. Frequent caresses of a lover and throughout the day keep the love fire burning. Slowing down and experiencing life more fully through your senses fuels your presence. Our living sense of our heart field as we move through the world.

These micro-practices are part of a natural way of tending the heart fire – of generating love, presence and wisdom – at times fierce and passionate at other times tender and calm in the midst of everything in life.

<H2 Embodying the Heart Fire

Feel the sensations in your heart region, a heat, a shimmer, a tiny vibration. Rest your awareness in this space and feel the fuel of your consciousness increase the energy flow.

Visualize the electromagnetic region of your heart illumined from within like an inner sun radiant in all directions.

Experience a natural expression of your heartfield extending beyond your body.

Listen to your pulse and perceive the underlying rhythmic mirror and message of your state of being radiating to every cell of your body.

Feel the wave of your breath connected to your heart.

Bring your hands to your heart

Bring one hand to your heart and the other to your forehead and then belly. Feel your breath bringing your inner rhythms and intelligences in coherence or the state of flow.

Experience the flow when thought and feeling, brainwaves and heart rhythms come into synch and the non-verbal knowing that guides your effortless flow.

<H3 Heart Bonding and the Collective Heart Field

Perceive your pulse connected to seven billion human beings, to countless creatures, to the earth breath itself.

Feel the energy field of your partner by placing your hand to their heart (in the front or back or just through your perception) Connect subtly through your body sensations till the shimmer becomes a living field that connects you completely.

Living In Rhythm and Flow

Experience the state of flow as a seemless awareness, a continuous dance, a stream of consciousness, an optimal presence, an oscillating balance navigated by the inter-rhythmic unity of the heart-brain.

Feel the turn of the earth, the moon, the solar system and galaxy and your rhythmic body - all the syncopated movements in the cosmic symphony of life.

Rest your awareness in your heart as you move through the day.

Before any action take a moment and pause. Feel the alignment of your awreness as your breath connected with your heart, the space to clear tension, and express your next moment in a state of flow.

Spend a day in a state of offering pausing before every action and offering your awareness to the source of action, an offering to heart altar, allowing the highest flow possible.

Spend a day in a state of devotional offering, pausing in prayer, transformaing every action, every breath into a offering.

Beaware of the holding in your feet, belly, shoulders, jaw and backs of the eyes and any place that may block the flow of your connection to the whole.

Pay attemtion to the cycles within your life from morning to night – the way you begin a cycle, sustain and complete each vinyasa to create a flow. When the flow is lost, some part of the intelligent cycle – the vinyasa of nature - has been broken.

<H6 Rasa Vinyasa in the World

<H7 Micro-Practices for Sringara Rasa

Feel the attraction at the source of creation. Imagine Shiva and Shakti dancing together in every one of your cells. Cultivate a passion for living by making love in all forms.

Contemplate the love that every being is born with. All humans are born as lovers.

Offer a sacred gaze that melts the hardened places with a revivifying love.

Move with your beloved in spontaneous combustion. Whole being bond.

When you feel your energy waning in connection, be aware of what may be weakening your bond and try to nourish the fire of love and affection.

Touch everything with your hands, feet, body as if you are touching the living shakti within creation. The earth vibrates, the air caresses, in a circular energetic exchange.

Experience your breath as your highest slow dance partner intiating you into the deep movement of your being.

Slow down and savor a drink as life-giving fluid , a taste as the nectar of life. Experience shakti as the energy within simple moments of bliss.

See the light in all eyes as a reflection of the Source. Trace the spark whether dim or blazing beyond the outer coverings of separation to discover the fire blazing in all.

All music effects our heartbeat. Find the power in many rhythms.

Bathe your senses in the perfect art of nature – the transforming rasa mirroed in all the arts and the creativity of living.

Self-care – massage, enjoying life and relation

<H2 Sacred Activism

Whatever is your greatest difficulty, apply the opposite and find someone to serve. Contraction– offer a generous act. Wavering doubt, be a steady hand for someone near. Overwhelmed – put your hands in the earth.

Listen to your heart and

Ask yourself what moves you, what you would give your life for and find a way to give back for future generations from your heart.

Care for the Earth, for your food – fuel of your energy and all of creation.

<H8Micro-Practices for Vira Rasa

Know in your heart the courage and stamina of your ancestors. Feet that have walked miles, arms that have paddled across seas, a heartfire that has weathered every storm.

Feel your truth as the core fire in your heart. Tend this fire with the power of self-integrity.

Triumph over mediocrity with a penetrating presence, an original action, a fearless knowing.

Roar with the cosmic sound of being ignited again.

Blaze through self-imposed limitations. No covering can dispel your luminious light.

Have courage to make the changes. To reignite a dim fire of a love, a passion. To support something you care about as it starts to waver. To be brave and let go into the fire when it is time to transform and be reborn to a life anew.

< H9 Micro- Practices for Shanti Rasa

Keep your heart at peace as crazy, disconnected, rhythms come your way.

Slow dance to intense rhythms. Be vibrant inside the dull. Steady inside wavering.

Exhale and relax holding anywhere in the body in the jaw, eyes, ribcage, belly, butt and feet.

Be aware when you heart gets to heavy. Remember the radical smile and open arms of the One who has nothing but the lightness of Being (hasya rasa) even when the house has burnt down .

Smile from the natural joy in your heart (hasya rasa) and feel the radiant effect to your energy field.

Drop your jaw permenantly in a state of wonder (Abdhuta Rasa) and awe whenever the mind-blowing beauty and perfection of nature in all forms overwhelms you in delight.

Feel the fire of fierce truth (Raudra Rasa) awaken your being freeing bound energy throughout the layers of your being (body, breath, emotions, thoughts, spirit)

Awaken compassion (Karuna Rasa) and feel repressed emotions in yourself or others being given love to release and heal.

<H10 Micro-Practices for Difficult Times - The Fire of Love in the Dark

When all else has failed, when there is nothing anymore to do, when you have exhausted every branch,

When you feel tired, like you want to give up, let go

When the world is overwhelming, be the Buddh

Take a gradual step, breath by breath, towards the next cycle. The sun also rises. The rest of night will always come again.

Claim a sacred space right where you are. Go to the refuge of your heart and let go of all mental projections of past, present and future.

When dissonant rhythms arrive, listen to your heart and slowly navigate your way through the jungle without fear, anxie

When you encounter ass-holes or abusive energy, remember the tree, a saint, a Tibetan monks or nuns in prison and radiate with an energy field like the sun that cannot be dimmed or broken.

When life gives you shit, role up your sleeves and make fertilizer for something even more powerful to grow.

When life’s rhythm is stressful and acclerated in time, remember a swift rhythm and dance with the flow while staying peaceful inside.

When you feel the contracted way that fear moves, or the sharp way that agitation moves, or the scattered way that anxiety moves, or the tight way control moves, move the way love moves

Dance with your Shadow as a tender human, feed your demons what they need to become whole, clean your wounds with tenderness and compassion, embrace the hardest most neglected places within yourself with a lava of love greater than the tiny ash of the smallest self.

The "Real World" is just a covering on top of a mystery, a movement in deep time that will dissolve every deadline, every obstacle into the dust of a billion years, a billion stars, a billion forms of light.

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<H1 Yoga Sadhana for Tending the Heart Fire – Summary of Practices

Submit to a daily practice.

Keep knocking and the joy inside

will eventually open a window and look out to see who's there. - Rumi

Forgetful one, get up!

It’s dawn, time to start searching.

Open your wings and lift.

Give like the blacksmith

Even breath to the bellows.

Tend the fire that changes the shape of metal.

Alchemical work begins at dawn,

As you walk out to meet the Friend.

-Lalla (coleman Barks translator

<fig. 138 ** Small pictures of yoga sadhana see summary of practice folder>

Design: This is a well-designed page that summarizes practices in the book like a "practice menu option

As you’ve discovered in this book, firekeeping is our universal practice lineage. Long before any formal meditation, our simple gaze upon the fire lead human beins to a natural state of presence and connectedness – an attument that is retained in our cellular memory for some two million years. We must remember within the fragmentation and distractions of post-modern life, that cultivating our depth connection is innate, natural and yet a process that must be tended. Living in flow is a connection to the underlying way we can tend our inner fire of consciousness all day –long through all rhythms and life-activity. The following is a summary of the practices in this book from simple to full-yoga sessions as well as micro-life-practices for everyday life.

<H2 Simple Practices to Tend the Heart Fire

<*fig. 139, 140, 141 , 142 of a the below

* Sahaja Sadhana – If you life is constantly planned, create space for sahaja sadhana that ability to be open to the instinctual arising, the open space. Enjoy the sahaja movement meditation (page XXX)

* Pranam Vinyasa - Prostrations – Offer prostrations with your prayers or mantra in the cycles of 108, 54, 27, 18, 9, 3 and 1. (page X)

* Mudra Vinyasa – Circulate Sacred Arm Movements with the flow of your breath (page X)

* Sun and Moon Namaskars –three-twelve cycles for surya namaskar or chandra namaskar or any prana flow namaskars in accordance with your energy flow. (page X)

<H2 Rasa Vinyasa Practice

Solar –Vira Rasa Vinyasa Practice – Igniting the Fire

Fig. 143 of solar vira sadhana

Create an activating practice session with the following

Kriyas – Agni Kriya and or Tala Kriya (page xxx)

Namaskar – Surya Namaskar (page xxx

Agni Hotra, Solar Meditation and Pranayamas, Prana Mudra

Solar-Lunar Sringara Rasa Practice – The Fire of Love

Fig.144 of Sringara sadhana below

Kriyas – Anahata

Prana Flow Namaskar

Cosmic Breath Meditation, Kirtan, Spontnaeous Movement, Hridaya Mudra, Shiva Linga Mudra

Lunar Shanti Rasa Practice – Peacefire

Fig 145. of the below

Sahaja Movement Meditation

Chandra Namaskar or Yoga Mala

Lunar Breath Meditation, Anjali Mudra, Soma Mudra Meditation

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